Harvard Catalyst Profiles

I am a pediatric and adult rheumatologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center with an interest in autoinflammatory diseases, health-related technology, and medical education.

I graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Amherst College. I then worked in clinical research at the Channing Laboratory and as a Spanish Medical Interpreter at Boston Children’s Hospital before pursuing a career in medicine. I attended medical school at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, graduating as the top student in my class.

I completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics (Med-Peds) at Brigham and Women’s and Boston Children’s Hospital, and then pursued a combined pediatric and adult rheumatology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 2014, I received the Distinguished Fellow award of the American College of Rheumatology.

While in fellowship, I helped to create Autoinflammatory Diseases Centers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at Boston Children’s Hospital. These specialized, multi-specialty centers were created to help diagnose and treat children and adults with known or suspected autoinflammatory diseases.

In 2014, I participated in the Rabkin Fellowship for Medical Education. I explored the use of cognitive learning theories and technology to improve medical education. I created AskUp (askup.net), a free, open-souce web application designed for learners to generate their own question and answer sets, and to share these with their peers. I am currently participating in the HMS Academy Fellowship in Medical Education Research, where I am studying the questions used in first-year medical school quizzes and exams, and categorizing them based on Bloom's taxonomy.

Finally, I am interested in the use of technology and social media for medical education. I am exploring how adolescent patients and physicians use social media to obtain or share health information, and the use of wearable technologies in the diagnosis and management of rheumatic illnesses.